We can all use a little extra iron(y) in our diet and Gracula is here to help with that. Gracula from Animi Causa is a cute little kitchen helper that makes the task of garlic crushing way less scary.
Put a few cloves in the mini vampire’s cloak. Put the head on top and give it a few twists.
You’re left with crushed garlic and stink free fingers.
If you would like to get your own Gracula, head over to www.animicausa.com. You can order one for $16.99 but be aware that they are on back order until the middle of September.
Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.
Do you spend much thinking about your toilet brush? Yeah, me neither. But every time I clean the toilet, I get the heebie jeebies about dripping dirty toilet water on the floor when I transfer the brush back into its disgusting holder. There has to be a better solution, right?
The Spindry toilet brush from Dreamfarm looks like an ordinary long handled toilet brush with a bristle head and a holder that has a weighted base so it won’t tip over when you remove the brush.
How it differs from traditional brushes is its handle, which spins when you squeeze it. The spinning action flicks away any liquid back into the toilet bowl instead of on your bathroom floor.
The Spindry brush comes in blue and is priced at $24.95 from dreamfarm.com
Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.
How often have you tried to spread butter on toast, a baked potato, bread, etc, only to find out that it’s just too cold and hard to spread? Yeah, I know, first world problems. But it is a real problem that could use a solution. One company invented the biēm butter sprayer to solve this issue. Let’s see if it works and if it’s worth it’s $129 price tag.
What is it?
The biēm butter sprayer (pronounced as “beam”) is battery powered butter heating and spraying device that uses no chemicals or propellants.
How does it work?
As butter is loaded into the biēm, it travels down from the product’s middle carriage into a reservoir. There, the biēm has layers of ultra-thin heaters that melt the butter. Once melted, butter moves up from the reservoir to spray.
At first glance, you might mistake the biēm butter sprayer for a stainless steel water bottle or a fancy electric pepper mill. The biēm butter sprayer stands about 10.75 inches tall and has a stainless steel
The biēm butter sprayer stands about 10.75 inches tall and the back side has a brushed stainless steel cover with a diamond shaped power button and an LED above it.
The sprayer side has a soft touch plastic covering with a hand grip and a knurled trigger in the center of the sprayer. At the top is the nozzle with an LED light above it.
The bottom of the biēm butter sprayer slides off to reveal the battery compartment where the V shaped rechargeable battery is stored.
The top of the sprayer twists off to access the butter reservoir.
Before you use the biēm butter sprayer for the first time, you need to load a charged battery and clean the butter reservoir. To clean the sprayer, you remove the top of the sprayer, fill it with warm water and a drop of dishwashing liquid. Then you put the cap back on, press the diamond shaped power button to turn it on. Then you hold down the button for 5 seconds to enter cleaning mode. You can then press the trigger to spray out the warm water for 10 seconds. Then you remove the lid, dump out the remaining water and repeat the sequence without adding soap this time.
Let’s melt some butter!
After you’ve cleaned the sprayer, it’s time to load a stick of butter. The biēm butter sprayer holds US sized sticks of butter like the one shown above.
Loading the stick into the sprayer is as easy as removing the wrapper and dropping it in the chamber.
There’s the butter, all cozy and ready to be melted.
The next step is to press the power button which has an LED around it that pulses in blue. When the light stops pulsing and is solid blue, you know that the butter is ready to spray.
To spray the butter, you grab the biēm butter sprayer in either hand and press the trigger above the curved grip.
Finding the trigger isn’t easy and I think a more obvious button would be a welcome change.
Once you figure where the trigger is, you aim and spray.
See it in action
What isn’t shown in the quick video demo is that a little bit of butter continues spray from the nozzle after you let go of the button. So if you let go and lift the sprayer to set it back down on the counter, the butter will spray on whatever is near by. You kind of have to train yourself not to move the sprayer until it stops spraying.
As you saw in the video, it took awhile to melt the butter that first time I put a brand new stick of cold butter in the chamber. I hoped that this was just a one time wait and that subsequent wait times would be significantly less. Unfortunately, even after leaving the biēm on the counter in a 73-74 degree house, each time I would use the sprayer, I’d have to wait 30-50 seconds before it was ready to spray.
I also didn’t like that I had no idea how much butter I was putting on my foods. According to the info on the biēm website, each second of spray time = .4g of butter. Yeah, that doesn’t mean anything to me either…
Final thoughts
When it’s all said and done, the biēm butter sprayer is a cool idea, but in my opinion, it’s just not worth the $129 price tag. If it instantly sprayed melted butter with no wait time and was priced around $50, I’d be more likely to want to buy one. But as it is, I think I’ll stick to sitting the cold dish of butter out on the cabinet an hour or so before I plan to use it and save the cash for another gadget.
I also read a lot of negative comments on the biēm butter sprayer Kickstarter campaign page, which also makes me leery of buying one.
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Brevda inc. Please visit their site for more info.
Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.
From allergens to smelly pets (or kids), we could all use a little fresh air now and then. I’m one of those “misses work” type allergy sufferers. I’ve spent a lot of money over the years in an effort to get some relief, especially when I’m home and out of the deadly winds of the desert. My latest weapon in the battle against airborne particulates? The Oreck Air Response air purifier. How does it stack up?
To start with, let’s talk indoor air purifier options. For years, I’ve sworn by my Blueair Classic 505. It’s quiet, it’s effective, it’s big in a “we’re gonna need a bigger boat” kind of way, and it’s $800. That’s perhaps a worthwhile investment for a room like a bedroom where breathing is particularly helpful, but what about the rest of the house? There are plenty of nooks and crannies in the average home that are just crying out for a little air-cleaning love, and I can say that this little Oreck does a heck of a job.
The Air Response I am reviewing is the medium size, weighing in at just under 12lbs compared to my Blueair 505’s 33lbs. It’s also less than half the size at 8.5″ x 16.3″ x 18.6″. Don’t let its small size fool you, however, as it can really move some air when you need it to. This smaller unit is designed to completely recycle the air in a roughly 200 square foot room in 12 minutes when at its highest speed. The unit uses a two-stage filtration system starting with an activated carbon filter for odor reduction, then a HEPA filter. The cost to replace both is $29.99, which I don’t feel is excessive for the performance. The display on top of the unit will alert you when you need to order a new filter, and though I’ve thrown everything I can at it for a month, I haven’t been asked to replace the filter. Given that replacement filters is where most companies “get you,” I’m encouraged by the low cost of replacements.
I sense something. A presence I haven’t felt since…
The Air Response features a particulate sensor that will automatically change the fan speed if there are more nasties in the air. Simply set the unit to automatic and it will intelligently manage the air flow. While I initially feared that this was a mere gimmick, I’ve found it to be surprisingly accurate and useful. It was particularly fun when my Corgi decided to shake herself off after running around in the back yard for a bit. The accent light on the Air Response immediately went from blue (a-ok, chief – no dust ’round here!) to red (I’m givin’ her all she’s got captain!) resulting in her jumping back as if she were under attack by the air police. Shortly after, the light switched down to purple (minor threat from airborne attackers) then finally back to blue. I say this is a solid feature and not merely hype. Well done, Oreck!
The Sound of Clean
Assuming you don’t leave the unit in Automatic mode, the Air Response has three user selectable speeds, the lowest of which is essentially inaudible from any more than a meter away, while the highest is audible from the dark side of the moon. In fact, I found myself needing to play Pink Floyd at eleven in order to drown out the guttural roar of this tiny giant. If you’ve ever owned a quality Oreck vacuum cleaner, you know that some dark magic must be involved to generate so much air flow in such a small package, and this air purifier clearly shares some DNA with the decades of mini-monster vacuums Oreck has produced.
Summing up
I’m happy with the Air Response purifier. It’s quiet when it can be, a bit on the loud side when it needs to be, but very rarely stays loud for more than a minute or two. Remember when your mom told you “It’s good that your open wound hurts! That means it’s healing!” I’m sorry, but she was incorrect. However, if your mom had said “It’s good that your air purifier occasionally drowns out the Slayer album you have playing on your 1100 watt speaker system, that means it’s working!” it would have been much closer to the truth. I say it’s a good thing, I sincerely hope I will not be sued by a particular home decor magnate for saying so.
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Oreck. Please visit their site for more info and Amazon to order.
Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.
Have you ever left the house and forgotten to turn a burner off on your stove? That’s not a trivial problem as every year many house fires originate with the stove. Wallflower is a smart device that will send an alert to your phone and will sound an audible alert when you’ve left the stove on for an extended period of time.
Currently only available for electric stoves, Wallflower is an easy to install module that plugs in between the stove and the wall outlet where the stove is currently connected.
An iOS or Android app on your mobile device pairs the adapter and has remote monitoring options as well as a geofencing feature that will alert you if you leave the house with the stove still turned on.
Be aware that the Wallflower module is designed only to let you know when a burner on your stove top has been left on. It will NOT turn the burner off for you and it does not monitor the oven.
Wallflower is priced at $169.00 and is available now. You can read more about it at wallflower.com
Note: If you are subscribed to this feed through FeedBurner, please switch to our native feed URL http://the-gadgeteer.com/feed/ in order to ensure continuous delivery.
Loading the stick into the sprayer is as easy as removing the wrapper and dropping it in the chamber.
